This author is amazing. How he was able to capture such an awful event and place is crazy. He really depicted the feel of the school and the black experience.

Just like with "Underground Railroad," this book will stick with me for a long time. It's fairly short, but it packs a powerful punch. The way Colson Whitehead tells a story is just mesmerizing. I knew nothing about the Nickel Academy until I heard of this book. Whitehead's book piqued my interest, and the stories and interviews I've read since are just heartbreaking. I love a book that makes me want to know more, and Whitehead did just that. I'm looking forward to what he writes next.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead was fantastic. I've read several of his books and have yet to be disappointed. The Nickel Boys is based on a true story of a boys reformatory school in FL where a college excavated the site and found bones of multiple bodies on the school grounds.

In this fictionalized account, we follow one boy through the reformatory school and get glimpses of present day through alternating chapters. This book is unforgettable and beautifully written. It deserves the Pulitzer - amazing!

Ok, I'm a little late on this one but Colson Whitehead's <i>The Nickel Boys</i> is absolutely fantastic. Just engrossing and heart-wrenching. Read it.

In 1960's Tallahassee, Florida, young men knew that if they fell afoul of the law they were headed to the Nickel Academy. Set up to provide a residence and place for young men who didn't have homes or who broke the law, the original intent was quickly subverted and the institution became a hellhole where young males were subjected to horrible treatment. Education was almost nonexistent as the residents were used as cheap labor, farming, running a print shop and doing odd jobs for well connected individuals in the neighboring towns.

This is the place Elwood Curtis finds himself in. Curtis was a studious young man, interested in education and doing whatever he could to make life better for his grandmother and himself. Instead, he finds himself swept up when he takes a ride from someone up to no good and before he knows it, he is at the Nickel Academy.

In addition to using the residents as labor, there were many other issues. Food was cheap and poor, as the best food sent to the place was sold to bars and groceries in the neighboring towns. Any boy could be disciplined and hit by any staff member and it was commonplace. For those boys who offended more brazenly, staff would come in the night and take them to a shed where they were beaten until they required hospitalization. Elwood finds himself in this category when he gets in a fight defending a younger boy. The worst offenders against the men who ruled the place just disappeared never to be seen again until a secret graveyard was discovered during an investigation of the place.

Elwood makes some friends there like Turner who stays cool and reserved but who has plans to escape. There is also Jose who is Hispanic so sent back and forth repeatedly between the white boy's barracks and the black barracks. You needed friends to survive but you had to be very careful who you trusted. Friendship was just another item that could be twisted to be used against you.

Colson Whitehead has written a novel that exposes the horrors of what occurred in such places. It won the Pultizer Prize, the Kirkus Prize and is longlisted for the National Book Award. It has been chosen as a best book of the year by multiple organizations such as Time, NPR, the Washington Post, Vox and others. It takes the reader inside the lives of these young men and shows what occurs when someone is totally at the whim of those in power and when your life is valueless to them. The book ends with a twist that is stunning and readers won't soon forget it. This book is recommended to readers of literary fiction and those interested in reading about the experience of young black men and racism.

Heartbreaking story that is beautifully written.. I believe this book should be required reading in light of the social unrest in this country to frame the systemic racism that pervades this nation.

The Nickel Boys was moving and I recommend it to my co-workers and students. Colson Whitehead knows how to tell a story and this is one that needs to be told; based on a true story of a school in Florida, The Nickel Boys describes life and death at a reform school where the residents are segregated, the adults in charge are careless and horrible people who failed everyone, but most especially the boys of color. The system was broken and the kids knew it. They took advantage of it when they could, but mostly they suffered at the hands of the people who were supposed to protect them. This tragic fictionalized account will break your heart, stir you to action, make you hate those who perpetrated crimes against the defenseless, and wonder how children could have been treated like this still in the 21st century.

You must read this book!

So thought provoking and incredibly well written! Really not much more to say than it’s definitely worth a read!

Every so often I work up enough nerve to try a literary novel about a subject that I know will be gutting. Elwood Curtis is a smart, caring kid who is no match for the societal forces arrayed against him at the hellish Nickel Academy.

The shape of the story is unusual, with time jumps giving the reader respite from Nickel. Whitehead wisely leaves most of the brutality to the imagination, but it's always clear what is really happening when boys disappear.

The story is based on a real place, Dozier School, which operated in Florida for 111 years.

Received a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Set in the 1960s, Jim Crow era, The Nickel Boys is a work of fiction but, based on an actual place: The Dozier school, a horrible reform school in Marianna, FL that remained in operation for 100+ years. In this story that reform school is known as The Nickel Academy.

Elwood Curtis is a smart black boy who is being raised by his strict grandmother. He's on the right path, headed for college but, one bad decision lands him at the Nickel Academy. It's a place where young men are brutally abused: tortured and sexually assaulted. Despite all he must endure he tries to keep Dr. Martin Luther King's messages and ideals on his mind and in his heart. His friend Turner is more skeptical, he calls his friend naive. The boys try to follow the rules and not buck the system knowing full well that their lives are at risk.

The Nickel Boys is a relatively short book. It's a tough yet important story about a terrible time in US history. I thought the story was well written, heartbreaking at times, with a rather shocking and abrupt ending.

Thoroughly enjoyed this heartbreaking and rage-inducing novel. I consider Colson Whitehead to be one of our modern great American novelists.

Whitehead's writing is phenomenal. That he is able to pack such a punch in just over 200 pages, shows off what he's capable of.

A riveting novel by master storyteller Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys shares the unlucky tale of Elwood, a boy born into the civil rights movement, who works hard and strives to make a better life for himself. However, when a series of unfortunate mishaps lands him in a jail-like reform school, he will discover what freedom and forgiveness truly mean.

I enjoyed the way the story was crafted. It opens with anthropologists excavating a graveyard and trying to uncover the secrets left by the now defunct school. Although fictional, it is told in an academic manner, as though reporting on real events. The horrors and atrocities that unfold, may turn the reader's stomach, but ultimately, inspire a message of hope.

I was fortunate to receive a free ARC of this book from Netgalley. The above thoughts, insights, or recommendations are my own meek musings.

Tough, but really meaningful and moving read. It was hard to read at times but I’m so glad I kept going. I’ve recommended this book to almost everyone I know!

Somehow slighter than expected, but packs a punch. The response seems to indicate something more major than this feels, but highly recommended regardless.

I hate to compare this book to anything else but I couldn't stop thinking about IT, Stand By Me, and Shawshank. I mean this as a compliment in that as an adult I can't help but admit that Stephen King's work has had an effect on me and potentially the whole American psyche. With Underground Railroad and this book, I feel that Whitehead has done this in the same way, taking something painfully real, adding a touch of magic, and offering something nostalgic, relatable, thought-provoking, and fulfilling. I hope Whitehead continues to make great books because I now see him as an indelible American storyteller.

The Nickel Boys is the story of one black boy's time spent incarcerated at a fictional - based on a real - reformatory school in Florida in the 1960's. Sentenced for a crime he was not guilty of, Elwood is forced to endure brutal beatings and mistreatment along with a cast of other students who have been broken by the institution.

The violence recounted by the book is a necessity. I wouldn't call it graphic, but it is inherent at the school. The students in the black school at Nickel are subject to racial violence and sexual assault. The boys who were lucky enough to survive Nickel have an assortment of traumas. Never allowed a normal life after what they endure. It's, terrifyingly, the perfect illustration of how institutional racism and violence destabilize generations of people.

While I thought that Elwood's narrative was engaging and often brilliantly written, something in the pacing here was uneven and rushed. Maybe it's because I'm a huge fan of Whitehead's Underground Railroad, but it didn't feel like it got the time it needed. Really a minor quibble though, for an otherwise spectacular novel.

I found this a surprisingly fast read. It's interesting but does not live up the the great reviews I saw about it. I think Whitehead had a plan and fit the characters into it. Yes, horrible things happen, but I felt strangely outside of the characters and their experiences. And the ending was a let down. I felt like is that it? During the course of the book he makes some very valid points about how racism has corrupted America. Maybe this should have been a work of non-fiction.

This is the second book of Whitehead's that I read after The Underground Railroad. I enjoyed this one much more than the last book. The Nickel Boys is a good work of fiction inspired by real events. It's very readable and I zoomed through it, although at times I was confused about certain storylines and characters. Having read this novel I'm now really interested in learning more about the Dozier School and the young men who lived and suffered there.

What can I say about the Nickel Boys? This was another book club selection, so I probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own. It certainly wasn't bad, but I think I expected more from it. I never read The Underground Railroad, but due to how monumentally well received it was, I had high expectations for this one.

Whitehead is a talented writer--there's no doubt about that. His descriptions are amazing, his dialogue is on point, and his plots are interesting and compelling. He deserves every accolade he has received. I think my main issue with this novel is its scope. It's a very short book--only around 250 pages--and Whitehead tries to cover a lot of ground and a truly dizzying number of characters.

Our main characters are Ellwood and Tucker, and of the two Elwood is significantly more fleshed out. Both boys are sent to the Nickel Academy which is a segregated reform school in Florida during Jim Crow. It's as abysmal as you can imagine and Whitehead doesn't skimp on the misery (rightly so imo). The novel brings up many interesting ideas, but isn't long enough to flesh them out. There are so many characters, so many events and perspectives and circumstances, that it can be very difficult to keep everything straight. I wish the book had had either a tighter focus on Ellwood, or that it had been at least twice as long. There is plenty for Whitehead to explore at the Nickel Academy, and I wish I had gotten a meatier experience.

Overall not a bad read, and certainly an important novel for this day and age, although maybe not the best pick for a first Whitehead read. It's easy to forget Jim Crow occurred within living memory and a stark, firm reminder of that fact is never a bad thing.